“Designed by the enemy to trip us up or by God to test and therefore refine us, double standards prove circumstances are fickle; certainly nothing to be offended about.”
Have you ever noticed that doing the very same thing in slightly varying situations or with different people brings entirely different results? Or perhaps you note the matters of heart in our world today are a little difficult to predict. Either way, double standards show us that our world is a complicated place to live and work in—at times, a perplexing place.
And we can certainly forget about the confusion too if we focus on the injustices of double standards. Only recently there was a talk-back discussion on morning radio about the pros and cons of allowing people cigarette breaks at workplaces—and the variations in standards, and perceptions of fairness on both sides of the argument. These arguments are designed to polarise us into ‘having a view.’
Yet, it’s the higher minded person who can live with both realities simultaneously—they’re somewhat immune to the ‘powerful’ force of double standards, which only serve to trip up a vast proportion of the populace.
My earlier quote I find is the golden essence behind both the double standard, and life. If we can only but accept this as our ‘rule of thumb’ we can skirt defamatory, distracting issues almost at source. Imagine the amount of healthy avoidance we might begin to engage in as we focus our energies more positively.
Like most things, the presence of double standards merely proves there’s both positive and negative ways of looking at almost anything. The enemy puts the double standard of rank unfairness there to trip us up—to offend us. He loves it when we’re all pious yet paradoxically offended—pious and offended together are oxymoronic.
Yet, God places these things of injustice before us as opportunities; we respond the wrong way and possibly we’re admonished; we respond correctly (i.e. proactively, cheerfully and without complaint) and God’s pleased—we receive his favour.
Living with double standards, and working in the midst of this reality, toward a higher realm of vision i.e. toward the heavenly, has got to be the way—the only way.
This way of Jesus’ is so far from the world; it’s a paradoxical logic—yet, it’s the only logic that works! It’s a logic that covers for our rank lack of perception—a perception without conception in an infinite amount of cases.
© S. J. Wickham, 2009.
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